Like every member of the House of representatives, Rep. Dan Donovan (R-NY) faces reelection in the midterm elections this November. Unlike most incumbents, however, he’s facing a strong primary challenge from the pro-Trump wing of the party.
Former Congressman Michael Grimm held the seat Donovan currently holds from 2013-2015, but had to vacate his office when he went to jail in the middle of his term for tax fraud. Donovan won the special election to fill the vacancy.
Now out of the pokey, Grimm wants his seat back, and he’s been shamelessly riding the Trump-train to do it, touting the president’s xenophobic faux-populist agenda in an attempt to oust his fellow Republican in the upcoming primary.
How is Rep. Donovan responding to Grimm’s threat? Is he taking the high road and eschewing any attempts to play down to Trump’s base or engage in any hero worship of the president?
Or course not. Rep. Donovan has decided that he needs to match Grimm’s Trump worshipping bow for bow. Now, he’s introducing a bill in Congress that will require photos of both President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence be displayed in the lobbies of every post office in the country.
Most post offices already post photos of whoever the current president is, regardless of party. But a constituent in his Staten Island, NY district complained to Rep. Donovan that his local post office displayed photos of President Obama when he was in office, but have not yet hung a photo of President Trump.
This, apparently, is what qualifies as urgent business in the Republican-controlled Congress these days. We’re not sure when or if it will reach the floor for a vote, but that’s not the point, is it? Rep. Donovan thinks he just needs to be able to tell his Republican-heavy constituency that he’s doing his part to spread the cult of personality of Trump, and he’ll hold enough of the Trump base to advance to the general election.
The scariest part of all of this is, it just might work.
